September 3 - September 9

Thursday, Sept. 3

Jazz in the Park w/ The Jazz Orgy @ Cathedral Square Park, 6:30 p.m.

The Fox Valley’s resident jazz heads prefer variety to traditionalism. Claiming
that if they played Miles Davis and John Coltrane all night it would
put their audience to sleep, The Jazz Orgy plays a variety of funk,
Latin, Cajun or whatever they’re in the mood for on a particular night.
A rotating cast of characters makes up the band’s lineup on any
given night, which keeps their separate five-night-a-week residencies
from going stale. Expect them to break out some special surprises for
their Jazz in the Park spotlight show tonight.

Friday, Sept. 4

Beating
Eminem in a freestyle battle wasn’t enough to instantly establish
Chicago rapper Rhymefest, who worked as a university janitor for years
after his storied Scribble Jam victory until his real breakthrough came
when he co-wrote the Grammy-winning “Jesus Walks” with Kanye West.
Rhymefest’s 2006 debut album, Blue Collar, earned him a critical
following, and mixtapes with super-producer Mark Ronson, like last
year’s Michael Jackson-themed Man in the Mirror, furthered his
reputation. Rhymefest threw fans for a loop this year, though, with a
mixtape that sounds like the first shots of a potentially bloody
culture war. El Che: The Manual Mixtape baits progressive-minded
hipster and backpack rap fans with its brazen homophobia, which
Rhymefest is suddenly flaunting as loudly as Fred Phelps outside a
production of The Laramie Project. At times it’s hard to tell
whether Rhymefest’s hateful new lyrical bent is part of some kind of
publicity-garnering, Bruno-esque social experiment, or whether one of
the underground’s most respected rappers really has turned into one of
the scene’s biggest bigots.

As
just about everyone involved with the recording has made clear time and
time again, Dark Side of the Moon was never intended to sync up with
the 1939 musical The Wizard of Ozand 1973 studio technology would have
made syncing the two nearly impossible to pull off even if Pink Floyd
had wanted to. Because Dark Side of the Moon is filled with so many
open-ended lyrics and fleeting sounds, it’s easy to see why fans have
volunteered the album as the film’s unofficial second soundtrack, but
the truth is you can run the album during just about any filmor TV
show, sports game, political debate; anything, reallyand it’s bound to
seemingly sync up at some point. Tonight at dusk, Discovery World
offers a free outside screening of The Wizard of Oz with its
stoner-approved soundtrack, following a 6 p.m. fish fry.

Tulpan @ UW-Milwaukee Union Theatre, 7 p.m.

Near the conclusion of his four-star review of Tulpan, Roger Ebert

acknowledges
the difficulties of convincing American audiences to see a dramedy
about shepherds in barren Kazakhstan. “You’ll enjoy it, not soon forget
it, and you’ll tell your friends about it and try to persuade them to
go,” Ebert promises, “but you’ll have about as much luck with them as
I’m probably having with you.” In spite of its unlikely source
material, the film has been met with open arms by American critics, who
have fallen for this humble story about a sailor in the Kazakhstani
desert who, in order to acquire the land needed to fulfill his dreams
of becoming a herdsman, must marry the only eligible woman in his
village, the title character. (Through Sunday, Sept. 6.)

Loyal Order of Water Buffalo w/ The Carolinas @ Shank Hall, 8 p.m.

Loyal
Order of Water Buffalo is not, as its name suggests, a group of diners
fiercely dedicated to a popular Third Ward restaurant on the corner of
Water and Buffalo streetsin fact, the group predates that
establishment by more than two decades. Loyal Order of Water Buffalo is
one of Milwaukee’s longest-running alt-country and roots-rock bands,
with deep ties to the local scene that date back to primary
singer/songwriter John Bitenc’s inclusion in an early lineup of The
Spanic Boys. Tonight, the group splits a bill with another veteran
Milwaukee alt-country act that now limits its shows to just once in a
blue moon, The Carolinas.

Saturday, Sept. 5

Truth in Fiction @ The Miramar Theatre, 6 p.m.

Truth
in Fiction’s “Brown Sweater” might be the catchiest piece of
sugarcoated pop-punk to arrive since the great Jimmy Eat World boom of
2001, and the Milwaukee band’s debut album, Fireflies, is filled with
similarly hooky, All-American Rejects-esque emo-pop, deftly produced by
bassist Kristian Riley, formerly of Citizen King. It’s one of the most
radio-friendly records Milwaukee has yielded in years, and though the
band hasn’t made much of a dent on the radio yet, they’ve been building
a following with shows on the Warped Tour and opening for Fall Out Boy.
Truth in Fiction tops a loaded bill tonight also featuring (deep
breath): Danger Is My Middle Name, Mathletes, Love Me Electric, The
High Life, You’ll Love Me Tomorrow and Leah Stargazing.

Fable
& the World Flat aims to make its crowds dance, a goal that would
seem unexceptional enough if not for the style of music they play:
Instead of funky dance-punk or up-tempo electro-clash, the Milwaukee
group grounds its unlikely dance music in the somber, jazzy tones of
turnof-the-century indie-rock groups like Karate and Aloha, bands more
likely to crush spirits than lift them. This summer, in addition to
releasing their debut album, Ladies and Gentlemen…, a collection marked
by Dntel-like, glitchy beats, the group added two new members: bassist
Paul Fleming and keyboardist Nick Perow.

Sunday, Sept. 6

If
it weren’t for Chris Tucker declining to return to his role as Smokey
for the sequel to the 1995 cult classic Friday, the world might not
know Mike Epps the way it does today. Although he has been featured for
his stand-up on Def Comedy Jam several times throughout his career,
Epps is best known for his on-screen work opposite Ice Cube, which
began with Next Friday and continued with Friday After Next and All
About the Benjamins. After Epps’ remake of The Honeymooners with Cedric
the Entertainer flopped hard, Epps decided to team up once again with
Ice Cube for Janky Promoters, which will pair the two as promoters who
fail to book Young Jeezy for their club. But first Epps tops a comedy
bill at the Riverside Theater tonight.

Tuesday, Sept. 8

Free Energy w/ Juiceboxxx and Big Fun 4Ever @ Mad Planet, 9 p.m.

When
all the dust settles from the requisite “end of the decade” wrap-ups,
and magazines return to their usual “bands to watch in 2010” lists,
Philadelphia’s Free Energy will no doubt command plenty of ink. The
group has been signed to DFA Records and secured LCD Soundsystem’s
James Murphy to produce their debut album, which is surprising,
perhaps, considering how the group eschews the spry electro that label
is best known for in favor of traditional-as-can-be, sing-along classic
rock, with particular debt to Cheap Trickand especially particular
debt, perhaps, to Cheap Trick’s “That ’70s Show”-approved cover of Big
Star’s “In The Street.” The band’s Murphy-produced single “Free Energy”
has already charmed the Internet this summer, so their full-length
could genuinely prove to be one of 2010’s breakthrough records.

Wednesday, Sept. 9

Move
over T-Pain, Kanye West, Cher and even Roger Troutman. Though all of
those artists are pioneers in the use of the voice-manipulating
vocoder, Alan Parsons was using that divisive studio device before any
of them, incorporating it into his 1976 Alan Parsons Project song “The
Raven.” Of course, as a dutiful prog-rock band, the Alan Parsons
Project used all sorts of cutting-edge (and sometimes
not-so-cutting-edge) studio technology during the ’70s. These days
Parsons, who earned his first studio credit when he was just 18 years
old (on The Beatles’ Abbey Road, of all records), continues to tour
with an altered version of his signature band, now called the Alan
Parsons Live Project.

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